LIVEBLOG

by Megan Boyle

  7:16pm: driving home. Vincent Lombard rest stop, I had forgotten. Thomas Edison also.

  8:20pm: ate bk tender crisp chicken sandwich with mustard, salad, fries, large diet coke. Called z in response to things from last night, asked if he still wanted to help me move Monday (he offered).

  9:15pm: pulled into Molly pitcher travel stop to rest. Debating vomiting fast food.

  9:30pm: Zachary called. Sounded business-like, a way I’ve heard him talk to Jamie on the phone when he hasn’t wanted to talk. I said something about how he’d be in NYC for three weeks and he said it wouldn’t be that long, he had just taken a job ‘being nice to Jamie, moving things around for her art gallery a few times a week.’ He said something about me getting the rockaway apartment, asked about meeting with apartment people, sounding vaguely condescending or like he was making fun of me. In a better mood, I would’ve riffed or something, also made fun of myself. I said ‘it sounds like you don’t want to talk, it’d be nice to see you sometime.’ he said ‘ok gotta go’ and I hung up. Continued resting my head on passenger seat in a half-nap.

  9:40pm: texted Zachary ‘sorry won’t bug you anymore. Have a nice time with everything. Will think about you in good ways.’ Drove out of travel plaza. Remembered last year at this time, didn’t know I was pregnant yet. Remembered being in Florida with Zachary and Adam, who was filming a documentary about Zachary, and my friend Alec, who’d invited Zachary and me to read and hang out at his college in Sarasota. Called mom to say I was coming home. ‘one hit wonder’ by everclear played on shuffle. Have been listening on repeat.

  10:01pm: received this text from unknown number: ‘just zachary, texting from his ipad. feel free to reply to this number, which goes to my ipad, somehow. but yeah sorry if that’s how late interactions have made you feel, you don’t need to stop bugging me, you haven’t been bugging me. glad new place thing is working out, that seems like a good place, would like to say hi sometime. okay!!!’

  10:37pm: pulled onto shoulder. Made myself vomit into burger king bag paper bag inside of a plastic bag. It leaked. Put everything into another plastic bag and vomited until nothing came out. Tied bag in a knot. Heavier than I thought it’d be. Threw it into woods.

  10:39pm: cleaned face, fingers, areas of the car with cucumber face towels that smell like being in Spain with Tao and, now, the last night in Philadelphia apartment, sleeping on couch. Un-paused ‘one hit wonder’ by everclear and it played where it had left off.

  11:22pm: swallowed Vicodin from Mira. Texted response to zachery wood and texted atcolv that I hoped he got home safe.

  APRIL 28, 2013

  12:06am: feeling optimistic things from Vicodin. Nearing mom’s.

  12:59AM: have eaten three pieces of toast with butter/jam, another vicodin, glass of ‘fake milk’ (half & half mixed with water and chocolate milk powder). ate b-vitamin, niacin, omega-3 oil thing that makes burps taste lemony. both parents are here. stupidly interpreted remarks about my ‘stuffy nose’ defensively.

  6:25PM: fell asleep watching ASMR videos. ate 2mg xanax. think i ate maybe five small pieces of toast with butter and jam.

  earlier mom brought me a ham and cheese sandwich and hugged me really hard. she said ‘you’re not really going away, i know you’re not.’ it sounded like she was crying. i hugged her really hard back and, aware of a double-meaning i preferred not to acknowledge aloud, said ‘i’m not going anywhere, mom.’

  earlier i asked dad for xanax and he gave me 60mg in ‘blister packs’ and made his face look fake-concerned and said ‘i needed to steal these from a priest’ (he was just giving me what he usually gives his friend, who is a priest, he likes to say…exaggerate things…with a look on his face, things like this, like ‘i’m going against the rules’ sometimes).

  tomorrow i’m getting a computer at macmedics while dad and two ‘mover friends’ load my storage closet things into a u-haul.

  then we’re driving to new york.

  then all my stuff will be in once place.

  me and the cats and the stuff.

  then everyone will be gone but me and the cats and the stuff.

  7:16PM: laying in bed. sky is very gray and almost night again. woke around 3PM after falling asleep around 2AM. called superintendent of new building to see if i could move in tomorrow. pooped. mom is saying unprompted things about how it’ll be okay, people from ikea know how to put together furniture. i said ‘i know how to do it, or zachary can help.’ she said ‘oh i thought you weren’t on good terms with zachary.’ i said ‘no we’re fine, it’s. he would help, it doesn’t matter, don’t listen to me, everything is fine.’

  8:27PM: A FEW HOURS AGO:

  mom: [sits on piano bench] i want to visit you on friday, we can go to ikea. i don’t want you to think i don’t want to visit, i just need to be asked to visit.

  me: i want you to visit. will you visit?

  mom: yes. i’ll visit friday.

  A FEW HOURS AFTER THAT:

  me: [entering kitchen, mom on couch] there’s an ikea ferry, when you visit we can take the ferry.

  mom: i want to take the ikea ferry! where does it go?

  me: just to ikea, i don’t think other places.

  mom: of course, where else would it go, haha. we’ll get you things at ikea.

  me: great. i think i only need a bed frame, it would be fun to go to ikea with you though.

  mom: what about your old bed frame?

  me: that was zachary’s. the mattress didn’t quite fit it anyway.

  mom: what about the white one from dad’s house?

  me: my mattress is too small for it, i think. then the one from my baltimore apartment is broken, then the other one from brooklyn broke too. i can just sleep on a mattress.

  mom: don’t sleep on just a mattress! you and dad can use the u-haul.

  me: good idea.

  A FEW HOURS AFTER THAT:

  dad: i heard your mattress might be too small for the frame, from mom, so maybe we should use the u-haul tomorrow morning to—

  me: oh yeah, the u-haul. we can go to ikea tomorrow.

  dad: well ikea is far away, so i thought mattress discounters would be good.

  me: i don’t care. i have no preferences. mom said ikea.

  dad: it’s just that ikea is, i don’t know where it is in relation to the storage closet, but we have mattress discounters right here by—

  me: yeah, yeah. i don’t know. i don’t care at all, about where. any of this.

  dad: well okay sweetie, i’ll see you soon.

  8:4[something]–9:16PM: slept. mom woke me to ask if i wanted food, said ‘oh i guess you don’t, you’re asleep.’

  10:32PM: dad brought home bar-be-que. there was an extra pork sandwich, in case i got hungry. stood by dad and picked at food. he said ‘do you want me to wake you with coffee, like in the old days?’ i said ‘yeah, yeah, at seven-thirty, that would be good.’ he asked how far i had gotten into ‘homeland’ and i said ‘somewhere near the last episode.’ he said watching it before bed made him tense. i said ‘i don’t want to watch it tonight either.’ dad said ‘me neither.’ he was preparing coffee, said ‘oops, this one isn’t ground,’ about a bag. i concentrated on eating. mom talked about ‘mad men.’ dad said ‘i might watch.’ i said ‘does it matter what’s happening on it? would i get it?’ mom said ‘well it’s, er. nineteen sixty-three, i think, it’s right after martin luther king was assassinated. no, it can’t be that early. mike?’ dad said ‘yes, it was nineteen sixty-three, no, i remember very well, i was sitting on my lawn saying the rosary, the day martin luther king died.’ he paused, said ‘no! that was john f. kennedy. it was nineteen sixty-six.’ mom said ‘nineteen sixty-six, yes. because of the music.’ dad said ‘people were swinging to the music.’ he said ‘oh look, this bag is already ground.’ i said ‘oh good, a grounded bag.’ i knew if i stood by him, picking at food, it would take him long time to finish the coffee. i wanted to be quiet. i got a cold water bottle from the fridge and said ‘will you lea
ve everything out, just like that?’ dad said ‘the food? just like this?’ i said ‘yeah, just like that. i’ll finish it,’ and felt a little sad.

  11:41PM: surprise appearance from mom. she said she had a good feeling about rockway park, that good things would happen. i said ‘thank you for saying that. i’m not excited but i’m not worried either, i don’t feel anything yet.’ she said ‘you’re just afraid to be excited because you think you’ll be disappointed.’ looked at wall and thought ‘maybe.’

  imagined reciting paragraph about standing by dad making coffee, when i took a water bottle to my room so we wouldn’t have to be talking anymore, at dad’s funeral. i would be saying ‘how could i have taken the water bottle like that?’ the extra sandwich, just in case. when i woke, there it was. he would do that, for me. i said ‘roast pork?’ he said ‘with tiger sauce.’ i said ‘i love tiger sauce.’

  APRIL 29, 2013

  12–2:56AM: read interview with richard yates…keep thinking about his life…description of the last apartment he lived…iowa, i think…boxes of recorded things…mildew…filth…one suit in closet…brown…

  it will be hard to hide in new york because colin will live across the hall

  think i am doing this on purpose…i think…

  no, it’s always easy to hide

  i want to walk around a financial district at night and feel that gutted-out lit-up feeling i get from being around tall buildings in a big city

  i’ll be able to hear the ocean

  i’ll be able to go smoke a cigarette in my front yard, which is the ocean

  too many boxes to unpack

  richard yates’ family going through his things after he dies

  my parents and me with little silent ‘end dates’ floating over our heads, filling boxes with things we think we’ll eventually find places for

  then there will be boxes for the ones who stay alive

  three chances to get all the boxes

  three people: mom, dad, me

  someone will have the most boxes at the end

  4:42AM: chewed 2mg xanax with teeth. sweating a little. turned out all lights. just broke earphones in attempt free from head. thinking about tomorrow.

  thought ‘my life is an objective failure, if you looked at graphs, other people my age, research students would easily identify me at 4:40AM blowing my stuffed-up nose from drugs, body full of food i wasn’t hungry for, inbox full of nothing, getting ready to sleep so i can be rested for moving in to an apartment in an area of new york about 40 minutes from people i like by train, which is only one hour 20 minutes closer than i am to them now, five colleges eight years zero degrees, 27, last time she had sex she was too drunk to remember but was apparently ‘begging for it,’ it is documented somewhere, at the end of march, 2013.’ i’m not saying this to be cute or to have an internet personality or some bullshit. this is someone’s life, it’s shitty, and what’s shittier is that it probably looks good to people, it is definitely better than some people’s lives, so on top of it already feeling shitty, i feel shitty because it’s not the shittiest i can get, other people have it worse.

  i feel like the guilt for not having it as shitty as you imagine some people to have it takes you one level down from ‘feeling bad’ on the ‘global barometer of feeling bad.’ like you do have it a teensy bit worse than someone who isn’t aware that they could feel worse. i feel a little better writing that, in a sick way.

  9:28am: raining and cold. meeting dad’s moving friends (Leo, Debbie, Naiem) at his office, getting gas, picking up cats from dad’s. considering taking adderall. Feel shitty Xanax things from last night, fell asleep around 5am watching asmr videos and ate a Dove bar. Relieved it won’t be Zachary and me today, lifting stuff. Listening to ‘one hit wonder’ by everclear on repeat.

  9:49am: followed dad’s car to office. No one else was there. Gave him directions to rockaway park. He gave me sudafed and nose spray, said he would just guess what I’d want from storage unit, to save time. Confirmed plan. Ate 20mg adderall, noopept, licked cocaine baggie.

  9:56am: bought gas, 16oz sf red bull

  10:31am: dad called with a question about a wooden thing. I said ‘just don’t bring the dresser’ and described it. We exchanged descriptions of the wooden thing…I don’t know what he was talking about. Seemed like there would be extra time. Garnered two blueprint green juices and an energy shot from whole foods. Same checkout station as a few weeks ago, when I was rung up by the man I liked, who showed me the clear barcode.

  11:27am: cats are in car. Got the impression dad is leaving most things I asked to bring and bringing things I don’t want or aren’t mine. Picturing Zachary and Jamie acting cozy/domestic in the video I saw last night. She doesn’t like his long hair or glasses. His hair was pulled back in the video and he wasn’t wearing glasses. I’m weak. Stupid. Cats are howling. Raining. They are confused about how fast the car is moving and all of the noises, I think.

  11:52am: dad and Debbie passed on the left, smiling and waving.

  12:00pm: kitties in kitty hell aka kitty carriers on front seat of car. Texted/responded to a lot of low-priority emails fast. Have to pee.

  12:24pm: peeing in rest stop. Wearing pre-9/11 panties I’ve had since high school. They’re white with a lavender graphic of the NYC skyline, featuring the World Trade Center. Didn’t realize thematic appropriateness as I was dressing for success this morning. Two toilet seat liners have been blowing into, through, and past stall, tumbleweed-like, during this pee session.

  1:10pm: have been thinking things like ‘how did I decide to do this, how is this happening, this is a mistake, what else could I be doing, what the fuck am I doing.’ Have to pee again.

  2:38pm: nearing NYC. Anxious re amount of stuff I’ve accumulated, finding places for it, throwing it away. Liveblog. I wanted to write or something, is that what all of this is about? Unable to ‘place’ what I’m doing right now, like, compare it to other events, this doesn’t feel real, the only person I’m romantically interested in lives far away and we haven’t talked in a long time and what does that say, I don’t know what I want to have happen to me, where will I find internet, I don’t want to be out of control with drugs, what will happen to mom and dad, where will I pee, the pee needs to happen soon.

  2:54pm: figured out how to situate 32oz burger king cup under crotch. It might come to this. Going 5mph Jesus okay speeding up now you got this Boyle you got this.

  2:56pm: oh god these bumps in the road are killer, lighting cigarette as distraction, fuck you red bull, whole lot of good you did, way to get me here, christ, ‘at least i’m awake (!?!?!?)’ is that the moral of you, red bull????

  3:02pm: six exits away you got this Boyle

  3:04pm: omg it’s stop and go again this is hell pee hell four exits away ok 35mph

  3:07pm: positioned cup, removed seat belt, unzipped pants. Can’t do it, pee urge lessened when I tried. Two exits away, Jesus am I gonna have to re-title and register my car, bumps in the road are AXTUALKY KILLING ME MY LUFE IS LESSENING WHEN I GO PCER BUMPSDSSSDSSSSDSSSSSS THE BLADDER OH NY SWEET BLADDY BAG NOOPOOO THE BUMPS OK 54mph again exit ahead 1.75 miles ‘let the river run’ is a lyric in song playing now lol

  3:19pm: 11 blocks oh my fucking shitttttyttyy

  3:37pm: superintendent, Mark, led me to his first floor apartment, where the keys to my apartment ‘had to be, somewhere.’ Felt like I was on drugs, the intensity I was holding in pee. Moment of comedic horror when Mark put his fingers through holes in Shirley’s carrier and said ‘can I let it out?’ I said ‘sure sure’ without thinking, wanting to say whatever was required to speed up to get to the part where I could ask to pee. The burger king cup wouldn’t have held it all. Such release. Oof. Shirley had hidden under a heater-like appliance in a room crowded with tall, disparate, barely-keepable objects and no lights. Mark said ‘she’ll come when you call her, I know how cats are,’ smiling the generous smile of someone who does not know how cats are, ‘I’m going to make copies of
your keys, you want anything from Dunkin Donuts?’ I said ‘thank you, no thanks.’ Walking to the door, he said ‘oh! you got another one too, this one’s a little bigger,’ stunning me with his egregiously late discovery of Alvie. I believed him too, this really did seem like the first time he noticed a second cat. Superindenent seems nice and easy to talk to. So hard to spell, though.

  5:13pm: here is car, the building, a little of the ocean. Moved everything in. Cats ran away or are hiding. Looked on all floors, stairwells. Walked Dad outside, where Debbie and Naiem had been waiting. Leo had left in the u-haul without telling anyone. My car battery had died. Dad’s face looked worried in a new way once he accepted battery was dead. Naiem and I pointed at things under dad’s hood, looking for ‘negative charge’ area of battery. Dad said ‘no, you know, you’d think to look under there, but it’s just computer chips under there.’ Removed the casing to the thing and he was right. He said ‘the negative charge can be on anything metal,’ but he continued to look for an ‘official negative charge’ area, saying distracted/directionless things about how my battery could’ve died, how it usually works with cars. His worried face. The way it looked when he said ‘if it doesn’t start tomorrow, well. Someone will have a jumper. You really should take it to a place soon, a mechanic. New batteries aren’t supposed to die out this fast.’ Felt aware of double-meaning. Then Debbie and Naiem walking to us from some place I didn’t see them go, talking excitedly about the ocean.

  Alone ass…car needs to run for an hour to charge battery. Going to drive to ikea.

  5:43pm: someone left eight beers in a line under the sink. Drank still-cold green juice from this morning. Sitting in car with engine idling. Remember searching apartment for an extension cord and the cats. Dad said ‘I found one’ and held up a cord. I thought it would be a cat. I said things I didn’t believe about the cats like ‘they’re here, I know it.’ he said ‘I know they’re here’ and ‘they couldn’t just run away, someone would’ve seen’ a few times. Debbie and Naiem and Leo were already downstairs, there was tension, knew dad was about to leave. I said ‘I wish you could stay for dinner.’ He said ‘here, why don’t I get rid of this tape,’ and walked to the rolled-up mattress. I said ‘yeah, yeah, let’s move it to the corner. It’ll be a corner bed.’ dad said ‘I lived in a place about this size with Galen’ as we held opposite ends of the mattress. Dad cut the tape with his pocket knife and we unrolled the mattress. There was a quiet moment. I opened a bag containing the mattress pad I’ve used since 2008. Dad bought it for me when I found a king-sized mattress and box-spring on the street and was moving into a house with two friends. He seemed giddy when he surprised me with the pad, I think because taking a king-sized bed from the street would be something he would do, ‘much to the disapproval of the stupid world,’ and he liked that I would do something like that too. Instead of getting a new pad I cut the king-sized one to fit my next mattress, slightly bigger than the one I use now.